NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Norm Goldblatt
Date: 2013 Feb 22, 10:39 -0800
There are some interesting papers- Yes- Very familiar with diffraction. And you're absolutely right about the relative angular size not being the 'whole story'. Matter of fact, one of the 'funnest' diffraction effects is Arago's Bright Spot, where you actually see a maximum in the intensity profile directly behind the obscuration. That's the wavelike properties of light for ya'.
I'm not familiar with the relation between diffraction and navigation except for the fact that there is a minimum angular diameter below which an object will appear identical to the diffraction pattern of a point source, roughly wavelength/diameter of objective. This would translate into an uncertainty in the position of this object.
Thanks for so carefully reading.
Norm
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